Back at the office, my goal is clear.
Time to corner Walter. He’s the fixie dude. He’ll fill me in.
What, I ask, is the essence of the fixie?
Walter drops the basics on me. Stuff I’ve heard before. Low or no maintenance. Simplicity. Some people think it’s cool. Blah, blah, blah.
None of it registers with me. No, there’s something more at work here. I know. I felt it. I lived it.
Then he ventures into that realm.
For some, Walter says, it’s the connection. The pure connection. You and the bike. Nothing else.
Cha-ching.
Maybe more like I-ching.
I sit back down and dabble with some work. But my mind is elsewhere. That’s it. Or something like it. There’s something else going on here. Something beyond gears and pedals.
I take it home for my commute. Suddenly I’m taking a different route, without even thinking about it. I’m slipping in and out of some sort of zone.
I know, it sounds crazy. It feels just as crazy.
It’s the same feeling that has me at the base of the real Bailey Hill the next day at lunch.
Whoa. Now that’s a hill. No wonder Chris raised two eyebrows when I told him the other day I rode up Bailey Hill. I didn’t want to disappoint him and clarify which hill or which part I rode.
Here we go. Can we do this?
Wait. We? No, bike riding is about me. Can I do it, right?
Not today. It’s a collective effort. At the top it’s collective exhaustion and admiration. Don’t ask how I know. I just know.
And, I know whether or not I give this bike back, something has changed.
Way, way, down inside.
Something feels so right.
Not that it felt wrong before.
But now, it’s right.
It’s, I don’t know, maybe it’s fixed.
